Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/611

Browse

Browsing Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics) by Author "Jonker, Anita"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The use of multilingual glossaries in enhancing the academic achievement of Extended Degree Programme students in a mainstream subject
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12) Jonker, Anita; Oosthuizen, Johan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: One of the explanations for South African students’ poor performance at university, is the apparent mismatch or discontinuity between the exit level of secondary education and the entry level of higher education – the so-called articulation gap. In addition to the articulation gap that has to be bridged, South African universities are faced with the specific challenge that students increasingly have to learn through the medium of English, which is often not their first language or a language in which they are sufficiently proficient. While students’ poor performance at university cannot be attributed to learning in an additional language as such, it becomes an aggravating factor when these students also come from educationally, socially and/or historically disadvantaged backgrounds. The current study was done in the Extended Degree Programme (EDP) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University which makes provision inter alia for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who often have to learn in an additional language. The research problem that gave rise to this specific study was the marked discrepancy over an extended period between EDP students’ pass rates in their mainstream subjects compared to their mainstream peers in the same period. A limited set of data indicated that students performed better in their EDP support subject, Introduction to the Humanities, when they were explicitly taught and assessed on the technical terminology of a new subject field. The current study aimed to establish through a formal empirical investigation whether systematic exposure to the multilingual subject-specific terminology of a mainstream discipline can also help to improve EDP students’ pass rates in that discipline. In addition, it aimed to identify strategies to enhance these students’ experience of success. The study was done within the critical realist paradigm which acknowledges that there are events and discourses that generate the reality of the social world. In terms of this epistemology we can only change the social world if we identify the structures that gave rise to dominant events and discourses. Once we identify these structures and change them, we can counteract inequality and injustice. Before the formal study was done in two Political Science mainstream modules, the English glossaries of the two prescribed textbooks were translated into Afrikaans and isiXhosa. EDP students with Political Science as mainstream subject were invited to attend weekly technical terminology tutorials for two terms. The teaching was aligned with the teaching and learning frameworks of the two separate Political Science modules and was based on the translated trilingual Political Science glossaries. After the intervention the EDP focus group module averages were on a par with those of mainstream students and the EDP focus group’s pass rates in both Political Science modules not only surpassed those of the control group of the same year, but were also higher than the pass rates of the mainstream students in 2013. It therefore seemed from the results of the quantitative analysis that the technical terminology intervention based on the trilingual Political Science glossaries had a positive result on EDP students’ pass rates. The qualitative study analysed the two Political Science module frameworks, semi-structured interviews with the lecturers; student questionnaires before and after the technical terminology intervention, EDP students’ written essays, as well as the test and examination papers of the two Political Science modules to establish whether students’ improved pass rates were also reflected in their experience of success. The triangulation of the results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses, showed that the qualitative analyses seemed to corroborate the results of the quantitative study. The findings of the current study thus support the hypothesis that multilingual technical (subject-specific) terminological interventions can play a significant role in improving EDP students’ pass rates in their mainstream subjects, as well as their experience of success, especially when it forms an integral part of the mainstream curriculum.